Media involving superheros has always been popular; from the Superman comics of the 1940s to Christopher Nolan's compelling and deep 'The Dark Knight' the costumed hero has always captured the imagination of audiences and had their creators reeling in the cash.
One particular medium that's become increasingly popular in recent years is the superhero blockbuster, with almost every A list and now B list comic book hero receiving their own cinematic adaptation.
Kick Ass, like many other superhero flicks is an adaptation of a comic book of the same name; following a nerd who through his own choice decides to don a colourful outfit and fight crime as a superhero.
This film, like the comic attempts to satirise the superhero concept whilst still adding it's own creative twist, rather than shying away from superhero cliches like so many modern blockbusters or deconstruct the characters like in 'Watchmen' it makes fun of them for what they are, but towards the end of the film it seems to lovingly embrace them, and it turns into an overly produced superhero action flick, similar to how 'Hot Fuzz' took the police action film, mocked and shy-ed away from the cliches before turning into one of the film's it was paying homage to.
The characters themselves were interesting and sometimes amusing send ups of classic superhero archetypes; the main hero for instance is a nerdy loner but rather than him be inspired by a family member's murder or a forced situation (e.g being bitten by a radioactive spider) he chooses to become a superhero on his own accord simply because to his knowledge no one has done it before (he soon finds out why), this was an interesting alternative to the origin stories associated with many superheroes as it's nothing out of the ordinary everyday person wanting to try something different, he's the ultimate 'elevated fan boy'.
The other characters followed suit with their almost lampooning of superhero caricatures, such as the rich man with all the gadgets, obviously inspired by Batman and the film makes no attempt to hide this fact, the character is referred to as 'The guy who looks like Batman' on several occasions, however his morals are the complete opposite of the said hero as he repeatedly goes round shooting people and revelling in the violence and chaos he causes. The same can be said of the child hero, where as most child turned superheroes would have trouble adjusting to their new responsibilities and powers this girl was raised to be a combat trained hero, so she knows nothing different, she is also a complete psychopath and very un-childlike, constantly killing and wounding her enemies as well as swearing.
This along with all the gory and graphic violence in the film made it seem mean spirited and unnecessarily cruel and some of the violence felt as if it were unnecessary. Although the violence does make the film feel reminiscent of 'Kill Bill' with the characters using lots of weapons and complicated martial arts stunts, to me this is what Tarantino would do if he directed a superhero movie.
The film also contains a lot of pop culture references and use of modern technologies such as YouTube and Facebook. It felt like it was trying to appeal to the 'digital generation' a generation who commonly use the Internet and are aware of viral media.
Overall I enjoyed this movie, as I am a fan of the superhero genre and I liked that it was trying to do it's own thing rather than apply to the generic conventions of what is expected of this kind of movie and the homage elements were welcomed. However I did feel the violence was unnecessarily excessive and the attempt to appeal to the young and 'hip' crowd could make it seem dated in the coming years.
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